DAY 82. Alice Abramo

Designer.

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English:

Graduated in Design, with majoring in Marketing with an emphasis on the luxury market by FAAP SP and Escola São Paulo (São Paulo School), Alice was part of the creative teams of the agencies Tátil Branding, Centoeseis, Africa and Asia Branding (ABC Group). Today, she coordinates the creative team of the Oppa’s marketing department, an e-commerce of furniture and decoration.

Alice also studied narrative illustration, and she develops a copyright work which was published in newspapers and magazines of large circulation in Brazil. She developed campaigns for Cidade Jardim Mall, C&A, Brahma, Puket, and brands of children’s market and of luxury’s market. Recently, she was invited to be a guest editor of Pais & Filhos Casa (Parents & Children Home). Passionate about São Paulo, in 2011, she was part of a group of designers invited by the City Hall and by Senac to develop a poster on the anniversary of the city. Alice also helps with tips for the recently launched tour guide out of the circuit called Home City Home. Her addiction is to change the places of the furniture in her home incessantly, and on her desk there’s no more room to keep crayons. Alice is 30 years old and loves to live in Brazil.

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What is your impression about a brand called Brazil?

Outsiders think we live in a permanent party. People from the inside are waiting for it for decades.

Outsiders think we are the future. We already know that it does not come so soon.

From the outside we are large, giant, huge and colorful. From the inside, we are together, bonded, depopulated, colorful.

For them, there is the Carnival at the “Sambódromo” (sambadrome), beer cabin and nod from the hotel windows.

For us, it is in the street, with warm beer, “arrastão” (mass robbery), Ivete Sangalo (famous Brazilian singer) and mouth kissing.

There is macumba (ritual or religion of African origin; used sometimes in Brazil as a pejorative meaning of “black witchcraft”), there is Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of God’s Kingdom), there is Candomblé (an Afro-Brazilian religion), there is the Monastery of St. Benedict, and Pixote (a Brazilian popular group that plays pagode music – a differentiation from samba). Also, there is the Bonfim ribbon (in Salvador), bath with coarse salt, all mixed together. For them, there is helicopter tour around the Christ the Redeemer. There is guided visitation in the “favela” (slum).

Here, there is lack of beds in hospitals, but for them, cutting-edge medicine. There is “mandinga” (that can mean “black” magic or a word from the “capoeira” world), stolen medicinal herb, great pharmaceutical laboratory, hospital of rich people, hospital of politicians, hospital of housemaid. There is vaccination for the children, there is campaign against dengue. Yes, we have malaria, we have spiders that poison.

There is drizzle in Sao Paulo, 50 degrees in Manaus, and giant and icy waves in Santa Catarina.

There are marches of 200.000 people in the street without a flag, there is march that mixes political parties, there are people who speak for us. Some people hit on us. There is media that protects, media that exonerates, media that changes the focus and media that messes with us.

There is the beach of the girl with her thong; there is the gays’ beach, the beach of Globo TV’s actors. There is the neighborhood where you can ride a bike, and the neighborhood where you can pay R$ 5.000,00 to live in an apartment of 80 square meters (no garage).

There is adman who only wakes up after checking how many “likes” on Instagram he had, car ad that supports the printed newspaper, mass dismissal of journalists, there is Globo TV passing the novel that stops the nation, there is TV channel for the famous priest, there are naked people dancing in auditorium program. There is the “gato-net” (illegal internet connection), the “radio-favela”, the fanzine, there is newspaper from the “left” (opposite to the Government), from the right, from the center, populists, tabloid. Out of the country we are strong, unprepared, young, and creative. In here, it is only for those ‘who can’.

There are people who studied at MIT, and returned to be CEO of a company in Vila Olimpia neighborhood. There are people who lived in Lisbon and created a poetry soirée. There is hipster, there is “daddy’s boy”, sertanejo (who likes sertanejo music), there is the “pagodeira” (who likes pagode music), there is “watermelon-woman”, the pear-woman” (hot girls), and there are metrosexual men. There are 4 women for every man. There is holiday all the year.

There are rice and beans, and there is the mixture. There is R$1,00 restaurant, there is restaurant on the roadside, there is hot dog with mashed potatoes, yakissoba and esfiha. There is acarajé (a typical food from Bahia), and there is the “Bolsa família” (a government assistance program for some families).

It is the place of the ready jokes, the popular sayings that take place, the “eye for eye, tooth for tooth”. The “he steals, but he does something” (a politician sentence).

It has a strong smell; it has yellow light and a texture that you have never seen. There are fruits for all kinds of juices you want. It has everything to do, to happen, to complain, to cuss, to break everything and do it all again.

There are foreigners coming nonstop, there is migration all year, there are people wanting to live in the interior of the country, there is more parking lot than pharmacy, there are more shopping malls than schools, more cars than paved streets, more tollbooths than road. There is no train to go, but there is crowded vans to come back.

There is a woman president, who fought against the military dictatorship, there is singer-councilor, there is National Congress empty on holidays, there is a city where you can not die, because it has no cemetery.

But, people say it is right here that, once, they found the happiest person in the world.🙂